Tutors of the MasterClasses 2019

Following prestigious competition successes, our professors have established themselves amongst the foremost soloists of their generation, performing in some of the most renowned concert halls in the world and producing widely acclaimed CDs.Above all they are passionate teachers and fine musicians.

Claudio Bohórquez

Claudio Bohórquez

University of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin

Ever since the jury at the Kronberg Academy's International Pablo Casals Competition presented him with no less than three awards in 2000, Claudio Bohórquez has been a familiar figure among cello lovers.

In addition to the concert experience he has gained with leading orchestras from Germany, Japan and the USA, he also imparts to young cellists that great passion and intensity with which he pursues his installation, improvisation and meditation projects.

For the winter semester 2011, he was appointed to a professorship in the succession of Jean-Guihen Queyras at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart, which he held until 2016.Since the winter semester 2016, he teaches as a professor at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

His latest CD recording of the sonatas by Johannes Brahms with his duo partner Péter Nagy appeared in 2018 at Berlin Classics.

Natalie Clein

Rostock University of Music and Drama

Described by the Times as 'mesmerising' and 'soaringly passionate', British cellist Natalie Clein has built a distinguished career, regularly performing at major venues and with orchestras worldwide.

She records regularly with Hyperion and her recordings have received awards such as a Diapason d'Or and Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice ‘.

She is the newly appointed professor at the HfM Rostock and studied in Vienna with Heinrich Schiff after winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year and being the only ever British winner of the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians.

Natalie Clein teaches at the Rostock Academy of Music and Theater as well as at the Royal College of Music in London.

Danjulo Ishizaka

University of Arts Berlin (UdK)

German-Japanese cellist Danjulo Ishizaka, first prize winner of the renowned ARD international music competition in Munich and the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann in Berlin studied with Boris Pergamenschikow. Since then he has performed around the world with leading orchestras and conductors.

He was awarded the Echo Klassik award for his debut CD, the Hideo Saito Memorial Fund Award, one of Japan’s major music prizes and the Gramophone Award for the Chambermusic recording of the year.

Danjulo Ishizaka performs on the Stradivarius cello ‘Feuermann’ (1730) on loan to him from the Nippon Music Foundation, previously played by the legendary cellist Emanuel Feuermann.

He is Professor for violoncello at the Music Academy Basel and at the University of Arts Berlin.

Sebastian Klinger

University of Music Hamburg

Born in Munich and raised in Spain, the cellist plays in addition to solo concertos with renowned orchestras in chamber music ensembles with leading instrumentalists such as Lisa Batiashvili, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang, Jörg Widmann and Christian Gerhaher.

His discography, for which he has already been awarded a "Diapason d'Or" (Bach Cello Suites), includes solo works, chamber music and orchestra repertoire with the labels OehmsClassics, Sony BMG and Deutsche Grammophon.Since 2015 Sebastian Klinger teaches as a professor for violoncello at the University of Music Hamburg.

JENS PETER MAINTZ

University of Arts Berlin (UdK)

When Jens Peter Maintz won the first prize in the international ARD competition in 2004, no cellist had received this award for seventeen years.

The following year, Maintz became the solo cellist with the German Symphony Orchestra, Berlin. In 2004, he was made Professor of Cello at the University of the Arts in Berlin, succeeding Wolfgang Boettcher. Since 2017 he also teaches at the prestigious Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Maintz has given concerts all over Europe, as well as in Japan, South America and the USA. He has recorded CDs for Sony Classical (Klassik Echo) and recently made his much-acclaimed recordings of all of Haydn's concerts for Berlin Classics.

Attila Pasztor

Attila Pasztor studied at the University of Music in Vienna and was trained as a soloist for six years by Daniel Schafran.In addition to first prizes at the "Intern. Musikwettbewerb Bayreuth" and the "Intern.Chamber Music Festival Austria ", he was awarded the" Vienna Philharmonic Prize" and the OESTIG Prize for Contemporary Music.

As a soloist and chamber musician, he regularly performs at renowned European festivals.He is passionately devoted to contemporary music: as chamber musician with the ensemble exxj and the All Alba Trio and - as a studied composer - in numerous own compositions.

JAKOB SPAHN

1. Solo-cellist of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich

He has won many national and international awards and has performed concert tours in Europe, Asia, Middle and South America. At the ARD International Music Competition in 2010, he was awarded a special prize by the Alice Rosner Foundation. As a beneficiary of the "Deutscher Musikwettbewerb"-scholarship, he qualified for the “Concerts of Young Artists”, a national selection of musicians. He was supported by the "Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes" and the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Association.